My chest twinges with guilt. Would I search for her for thousands of years?
Yes. I would have done the same thing.
I walk closer, staring at his blood-red lips, the broken fingernails, and hearing his whispered pleas.
“She does not belong to him, though,” the All-Seer says sadly. “He is not her alpha.”
I stare at him, knowing the truth with every part of me. “Yes, he is,” I admit and reach out, brushing my hand over his shoulder. He sobs and falls to his knees, banging his head against the bricks.
“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?” he howls.
“He is our alpha,” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off him. My heart is breaking, my throat tight. I crouch beside him, wanting desperately to touch him.
“No, it’s not—” she pauses, cocking her head to the side. “Remaking, changing, accepting. Choices and control. You are changing fate and destiny.”
“I don’t really care; I need to go back and talk to—”
“No! You must not talk about it. You all know enough now, but if you say anything to anyone, it will change. Every possibility I have seen, you all fail,” she barks out. “You have to wait until the Night of Falling Stars.”
I grind my teeth, annoyed all the more with this. “Fine, I won’t talk about it.”
She goes still, and the world changes until we’re walking in the forest of my childhood. I put a hand on a tree, looking way, way up, feeling the age and strength. My father and mother walked among these trees, laying their hands upon them.
Changing who I am doesn’t and won’t ever change who they are.
She tugs at the back of my top, a small tug, but one that fills my heart with trepidation.
“Mordecai, Alpha of the Hunt, there is something that you must know.”
I wake up with a start and find Jarek staring at me. We don’t say anything, just stare. I can see the knowledge in his eyes. He knows.
All the lives we lived are unlocked. My past as a god, my lives as an alpha, living and dying in the blink of an eye. Loving her and him in every single life. Tears fill my eyes. It’s like I’m seeing him for the first time.
“Jarek,” I whisper helplessly.
He opens his arms, and I crawl into them, holding onto him like he’s the only thing that’s keeping me together.
My lips find his, and it’s so familiar and so right. I have loved him as much as I have loved her. My best friends, my lovers, the reason I fight.
I bury my face in his throat, mentally reeling from what I’ve seen and heard, but grieving the life we had and the pain of having lost all those years together. Knowing what’s coming. My body trembles, and Jarek, the fire, the inferno, the always smiling, confident, love of my life, holds me while I break into a million pieces and slowly get put back together.
We died in Foreen. Seven hundred years ago, we died in this city, and it threw everything out of whack. We weren’t meant to be gone this long.
I don’t know what happened, but it’s almost at the end. The last battle, the final war, has been waging, and now it’s our time, but I have no idea how the three of us can possibly do anything to save the world.
We don’t even have our powers anymore. We are alphas and an omega.
How can we stop an army and a furious, mad goddess bent on the destruction of half the population?
I get control of myself and turn, looking into the dark and finding Cadel awake and staring at us with glowing red eyes, our sleeping goddess in his arms.
“Our alpha,” I say, and Jarek shifts his gaze to Cadel.
The bond between us flares to life, feelings rushing through it, twisting and mixing together until we’re all one.
Not alone. She said there were more; she said we were all fighting. Gods, humans, alpha, omega, betas. All hoping, all sacrificing, all dying for a chance to change the future.
“It’s not over yet; there’s still hope,” I tell the alphas who are my everything. “There’s still time.”
